#they're super interesting

[nieves-de-sugui]

A Quick History of BL

As someone who wrote a thesis on this very subject a few years ago, here is the short version of how BL has evolved throughout the years. For the new comers ❤ 

a minute of silence for the original form of this post that tumblr decied to not save right after I saved it

I am going to go with a chronological approach. Unfortunately, I cannot put everything in one post so if there’s any questions about this or that aspect of the history of BL that you want to know and it’s not talked about here, you are welcome to ask me directly :)

Context and influences - Japan in the 60′s

Before the US forced Japan to open its borders to the outside world in the 1800s, homosexual practices were common place between budist monks, samurais and kabuki actors. During the Edo period (1600s to 1800s) there was a very rich amount of poetry, art, books (such as Nanshoku Okagami (The Great Mirror of Male Love) by Ihara Saikaku) and codes of conduct about how to have a good master/aprentice relationship, kinda like the greeks if you know what I mean. However, with the arrival of western influences, in order to become a more “civilized” country, it was all put in the closet. 

Yet, in the 60′s Japan started to pick it up again through literature about young androginous beautiful boys (aka bishounen). On one hand, in 1961, the novel Koibitotachi no Mori (A Lover’s Forest) by Mari Mori was published. It tells the story of a young and beautiful 19 year old worker and a half french half japanese aristocrat, and their tragic romance. On the other hand, Taruho Inagaki wrote Shounen ai no Bigaku (The esthetics of boy-love), an essay on aesthetic eroticism (of which he wrote a lot of). All this was know as Tanbi (lit. aesthetic) literature. It generally refered to literature with implied homosexuality and homoeroticism such as works by Oscar Wilde, Jean Cocteau, etc. And of course, Mori and Inagaki. 

In chinese tanbi is read as danmei (term used to refer to BL novels in china today, ie: The Untamed it’s all connected friends).

From the birth of Shonen Ai  to Yaoi - 70′s to the late 80′s

Around the beginning of the 70′s, shoujo was being revolutionized by the Year 24 Group, a generation of women manga authors (mangaka) who started to explore new themes. Among them, their interest in tanbi gave birth to a new subgenre: Shounen ai. 

Their most known manga were:

Kaze to Ki no Uta (The Ballad of the Wind and Trees) by Keiko Takemiya, and Toma no Shinzo (The Heart of Thomas) by Moto Hagio

Their stories are characterized by having suffering eurpoean bishounen in boarding schools, living an idealized perfect love (meaning passionate) that, despite the tragic end of one of them, lives forever in the other. 

As this genre starts getting popular, more and more fans of these stories start making their own self published manga, aka doujinshi, of the genre. It is around this time that the term Yaoi is coined. Meaning “YAma nashi, Ochi nashi, Imi nashi” (no climax, no fall, no meaning). Basically PWP fanfiction, for the most part. Doujinshis could be considered an equivalent of fanfiction in manga form.  It is also here that the term Fujoshi (aka Rotten Girl, for liking rotten things) starts being used to refer to women readers of yaoi. 

With this rise in popularity come the start of the commercialization of the genre. Which meant the publication of magazines dedicated solely to yaoi/shonen ai/BL. The most popular yaoi manga magazine at the time was June. The common trait of their stories being the therapeutic power of the love between the mains. The traumatized character would heal throught this newfound love.

Most of the stories at this time happened in the West (Europe or the States) as the exploration of these dark themes intertwined with homosexual romance and homoeroticism still feel safer to explore as a foreign concept. One example would be Banana Fish (1985).

Commercialization and Yaoi Ronso -  90′s 

As more publishing houses pick the genre up, the term Boys Love is used to include every type of manga about homosexuality made for women. 

The increasing amount of BL series sees a changes in its themes: 

the start of the “gay for you” trope where one mantains their heterosexuality despite being in a homsexual relationship, 

the uke/seme dynamic (mirroring hetero realtionships) also relating to physical appearence (one being more feminine, the other being more masculine), 

the use of rape as an act love (sexual violence has always been present but here it becomes a staple),

anal sex as the only type of sex, 

older and more masculine men start to appear 

they now happen in Japan

Good examples of the presence of these themes in manga are Gravitation (1996) or Yatteranneeze (1995).

However in 1992, Masaki Sato (a gay activist/drag queen) wrote a letter in a small scale feminist magazine attacking yaoi and pointing out how it “represented a kind of misappropriation or distortion of gay life that impacted negatively upon Japanese gay men”. The female readers of yaoi responded, defending the genre as a means to escape gender roles and explore sexual themes that was never meant to represent the realities of gay men. This is know as the Yaoi Ronso (Yaoi Debates).

The debate ended with both sides understanding more of each other, with mangakas starting to include queer views in their works. It also started the academic reasearch of BL. 

Yet, it is a debate that has been restarted more than once, as it is still relevant despite the evolution of the genre.

more on this on another post

Globalization and coining of BL - 2000′s 

By the beginning of the 2000s BL is being sold all over the world (like all manga), and has become a stable industry. We could say it has finally become it’s own genre. 

Some of the most well known manga series, to us (in the west), of the time are:

Junjou Romantica 2002 Koi Suru Boukun 2004 Love Pistols 2004 Haru wo Daiteita 1999

all of these have anime adaptations for the curious ones

We also start seeing short anime adaptations or special episodes of the most popular series, with questionable themes, such as: adoptive father x adoptive son  (Papa to Kiss in the Dark 2005), father x son’s friend (Kirepapa 2008), etc... 

However the themes remain more or less the same. Junjou Romantica’s love story starts with a non-con sex scene by the older one (masc, seme) to the younger one (more feminine, uke) addressed years later in the manga btw. Koi Suru Boukun’s love story is triggered by aphrodisiacs and rape. They’re still very present in the stories but slowly going away. A mangaka that represents this era could be Natsume Isaku (Candy Color Paradox 2010).

Change is slow in Japan. Even though the voices of LGBT+ people started to be taken into account in the genre it is not until later that we see it reflect in the mangas themselves. However, we can already see the start of this in Doukyusei (Classmates) (2006) by Asumiko Nakamura. Also Kinou Nani Tabeta? (2007) which is actually part of a more mature genre: Seinen.

It is my personal (subjective) theory that the BL of this era was the one that got popular outside of Japan, which is why we see lots of references to the themes, tropes and dynamics of this time in today’s BL series. 

The LGBTzation of BL and the rise of webtoons - 2010′s to 2020′s

Slowly but surely LGBT characters and themes enter the scene of BL. Existing simultaneously with the previous tropes and themes, we start seeing a shift in these stories. We now see:

characters that identify as gay or some type of queer

discussions about homophobia

more mature themes about life and romance

At the same time as we get the usual love stories with the usual themes, a new trend starts to take over. And we get simultaneously, cute, sometimes questionable but light love stories:

Love Stage 2010 Ashita wa Docchi da! 2011 Kieta Hatsukoi 2019

More profound stories and darker or more complex themes:

Blue Sky Complex 2013  Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai 2011 (mafias) Given 2013 (suicide) Hidamari ga Kikoeru 2013 (deafness)

And others that adress the queer experience in a more mature way (which might actually fall into the Seinen genre)

Itoshi no Nekokke 2010 (slice of life, queer characters) Smells like Green Spirit 2011 (two ways to deal with a homphobic society) Strange 2014 (relationships between men) Shimanami Tasogare 2015 (an LGBT group helps a closeted gay) Old Fashioned Cupcake 2019 (you know this one 😉) Bokura no Micro na Shuumatsu 2020 (the end of the world)

As queer stories are explored, BL mangakas and mangakas from other genres start to consider more stories about queer people such as the Josei Genderless Danshi ni Aisaretemasu (My Androgynous Boyfriend) (2018) by Tamekou, or the Shoujo Goukon ni Itarra Onna ga Inakatta Hanashi (The story of when I went to a mixer and there were no women) (2021) by Nana Aokawa. 

Still, we can see two realities live side by side. Doukyuusei gets adapted into an impactful animated movie in 2016, meanwhile Banana Fish gets an anime adaptation that keeps the homoeroticism but not the homosexuality.  

For those who might be interested. Here are some of the authors that represent the first half of this era, where they start to include newer points of view:

Scarlet Beriko, HAYAKAWA Nojiko, KURAHASHI Tomo, OGERETSU Tanaka, Harada, KII Kanna (Stranger by the Sea), etc...

And authors that while keeping classical themes break the stereotypes in a subtle manner:

CTK, ZAKK, Jyanome, Cocomi, Hidebu Takahashi, SUZUMARU Minta, etc...

Mangakas also no longer stick to one genre only. They explore whichever of them they want, from BL to Seinen to others. 

ie: Tamekou, 

or Asumiko Nakamura

The curious case of Webtoons

With the digitalization of mangas, throught Renta and Lehzin, it has become easier (and more expensive) to access these stories. Korea makes and appearence with their webtoons. Through the lack of piracy protections and the majority of them being digital, manhwa (korean webtoons) sees a rise in popularity. Through the digital medium the influencee can be the influencer.

However, like many other East Asian countries they have consumed BL, without hearing about the conversations about BL. So they end up mantaining the older themes and stereotypes that newer BL is trying to leave behind. Therefore, we end up with a mix of old and new, ie:

Killing Stalking 2016 Cherry Blossoms After Winter 2017 Painter of The Night 2019

Additionally, it is also thanks to the easy access to internet that Omegaverse, with its higher dramatic stakes (that parallel hetero dynamics), enters the mangasphere in 2016. It has grown in popularity ever since.

With the Thai BL Boom of 2020, Japan rediscovers its own BL market and starts investing in it more. Which is why we get live action adaptations of BL manga that was popular years ago (Candy Color Paradox was a manga from 2010), the more recent ones (The End of the World With You) or new anime adaptations (Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai in 2020). 

more on this in my japanese live action BL post

What has it become now? is it BL? ML? or Seinen? Or is it all just gay manga?

It is clear that Shoujo manga (with BL, Josei and Seinen) is exploring queer themes such as gender and sexuality more and more. Japan is interested in this conversation, not only in manga (Genderless fashion). Which brings up the current question in BL studies: Does it make sense to keep these categories?

As a response to BL, ML (Male Love), which is made by gay men for gay men, started happening (around the 70s too). And Bara (gay manga porn) in response to Yaoi. However both gay men and women read BL and ML. We also see other themes being explored through BL, such as friendship (in BL Metamorphose), food (in Kinou Nani Tabeta), male relationships of all kinds (in Strange), and different queer views on life and its challenges (in Shimanami Tasogare). More and more what is LGBT and what is BL is merging, the line is blurred. 

Conclusion

BL has been in my life for longer than it hasn't. It is through shoujo and BL that I have come to understand people and romance.

It is flawed, like everything else this life, but it's flourishing in many ways.

The genre feels old and new at the same time. 

We can still find shounen ai/tanbi elements in more modern manga (All About J). Or the gay for you in a new light (Itoshi no Nekkoke). Or more educational manga on queer issues (My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame). BL has around 50 years of existence but it is also being born anew in Thailand and Korea. 

BL manga will continue to evolve in acordance to Japanese tastes, as it is still a local market. Hopefully the korean webtoons that get popular will be the more daring ones in their themes. Who knows where it will go from here? The only thing we know for sure is that it will continue to change. Isn't it exciting?

A post on the evolution of live action BL in Japan is coming, to complement this post.  As well as a more detailed explanation of the Yaoi Debates and gay manga.

#history of bl #bl post series #I feel like I left too much stuff out #I hope it makes sense #honestly I would really recommend reading some of those manga #they're super interesting #soon it'll be 20 years since I started reading BL #my gosh #if theres anything anyone wants to know more about #I'd love to write more :) #yaoi manga #bl manga

[baoxie]

annie at the school of sorcery!!!

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #annette fantine dominic #mercedes von martritz #bao arts #i love thinking about what their time at the magic academy was like.... #someday maybe i'll revamp these designs since they're kind of old and not super interesting lol

[critter-covenant]

"ooooh thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!"

They'd be good friends I like to thinmk

#hoppy being very super touchy when happy or excited #catnap being touch averse with some exceptions (and preferring prior warning) #hoppy forgetting this fact and grabbing n' tugging him around when she gets excited anwyas (she'll apologize later) #they're so sillyyy #all the ways the critters get along on a one by one basis is so interesting to me I like to think about what makes them all click #im rambling again oops oops hoppy catnap friendship is also peak i take no criticism /silly #poppy playtime #poppy playtime chapter 3 #smiling critters #smiling critters fanart #catnap #hoppy hopscotch #poppy playtime fanart #sorry for disappearing for half a week I got sick and then just. didn't really draw sorry about that one chat #thats pretty normal behavior for me actually dw if I ever go silent for a while that's my norm unfortunately

[wispforever]

do you guys think kakuzu's ever really hard on himself bc of his time in the waterfall and then hidan just unknowingly is himself

bonus under the cut

#kakuhida #hidakaku #hidan #kakuzu #naruto #drew this while listening to vacation bible school #puts vacation bible school on my kakuhida playlist #i drew this instead of sleeping #literally just pulled an all nighter #enjoy #I just like that Hidan doesn't really give compliments #but he DOES get super excited when they have a good fight alongside eachother #he's so fcking gay for kakuzu #he is SO hot for him when they kill people together #I don't see enough character examination of kakuzu #cmon people he's SO interesting #what a character #and so is hidan #they're perfect for each other #again. i love that hidan never know wtf is going on #he has no idea what kakuzu is thinking at any given time #does not understand shit #yet he still seems to come through #thats WHY THEY ROCK AS PARTNERS

[paintpanic]

Calculating probability of survival... It doesn't look good.

#kirby series #kirby #star dream #susie haltmann #meta knight #ask 2 tag #i don't have anything interesting to say here! #just that this is my first super “high-effort” piece since getting back from vacation #i've been pretty out of it but i'm starting to feel a lot better. thank you to my wonderful friends for being awesome. #...and thank you to the folks whos twitch vods i've been watching a shitton of. #hard to stay down when you've got so much positivity around you. #EDIT HALF AN HOUR LATER: hey hi this is the right aspect ratio for desktop wallpapers #i just really like drawing in 16:9 and 9:16 what can i say. they're good aspect ratios. they're the standard for a reason.

[sanctus-ingenium]

What role/niche do dragons fulfill in their environment? Or, if that is [secret]/redacted/Unknown [by universe parameters], are there other, smaller beasts - creatures not within our world, but common in theirs?

I've been meaning to draw a lot of these for a while now and this was a nice prompt thank you :)

Dragons support a large and surprisingly diverse community of animals. The primary producers are the unique photosynthetic cyanobacteria which are found lining the transparent flotation sacs of cloud fleas. 'Cloud fleas' can refer to any type of airborne zooplankton - that is, animals which do not actively fly but rather drift. Pictured is a daphnia type but there are a few others. The bacteria produce lighter than air gases as a byproduct of photosynthesis as well as nutrients for their hosts. The daphnia type pictured retain their large claws and use them to cling onto other individuals, sometimes producing really large structures which can form fantastic shapes at times. This is how they reproduce also (unlike in the water, they can't just externally fertilise eggs because gravity exists)

When they aggregate in large numbers (swarms reaching billions and billions of individuals), they become easy prey for dragons. The dragons capture the fleas using a dense array of rictal bristles. Living in and among the bristles are the monkey birds, a unique species of flightless bird which act as kleptoparasites, stealing the clumps of fleas bound up in dragon mucous before they can be transported to the dragon's mouth. The bristles are so dense that in order to get in there where the fleas are most concentrated, you wouldn't be able to fly. They spend their lives clinging among the bristles with their feet and wing claws, and they make their nests out of woven strands of mucous. New individuals join the birds' colonies when dragons are mating and their bristles come into contact with one another. Bird populations are controlled by hive serpents, who pick them off for a nice snack.

Barnacles and other filter-feeders are common on the windward-facing side of the dragon (what you'd call the front of the dragon). These do not harm the dragons and offer not much useful food for serpents while being very annoying to eat so they're usually left to their own devices.

The vampire chiton exoparasites can be found basically all over a dragon. They find a piece of cuticle that is thin enough to pierce and drill their siphons down into it to suck the watery connective tissue beneath. They are about a foot long and the main food source for hive serpents.

The serpents themselves are mammals. Nearly every dragon hosts a hive. Despite spending most of their lives on their hosts, they are quite strong fliers; they need to be, in order for the young queens to set out to make their own hives. The 'hive' consists of a reproductive pair and 20-50 of their offspring, with the queen being 1.5x larger than the others and by far the most aggressive. They have one tooth, a single elongated tusk which is used like a crowbar to lever the chitons off the dragon's cuticle. When working on the underside of a dragon, it takes a certain amount of skill to catch the chiton before it falls away. The serpent's neck and legs are very strong to produce enough force to dislodge a chiton, which are often so deeply attached that a human with a pickaxe would struggle to knock one off. The chiton is swallowed whole, and the shell digested.

Serpents viciously defend their dragons, controlling parasite populations and fighting off and attacking humans or large metal creatures they perceive as a threat. The name 'serpent' is given to them in the Mezian theocracy because they are associated with sin; hive serpents can be among the most dangerous combatants a holy beast might face. When the dragon has been killed, its serpents will flee and, more often than not, restart their hive on the ground if they aren't killed first. Outside of the theocracy, humans do raise serpents and use them for various tasks - a baby queen is taken from the wild (by killing every other hive member) and raised to imprint on humans. If their diets are not heavily supplemented with calcium carbonate, they fail to thrive.

#setting: mez #speculative biology #normal birds live up there too but they're not super interesting. they're like swifts or swallows

[snowdrop-yoongi]

my favorite thing about baek hyun-woo's portrayal is that he isn't even a loser. he's an incredibly cool and competent lawyer who also happens to act like a loser

#queen of tears #so glad nature is healing from the 'asshole rich man x clueless poor girl' dynamic #and is instead doing 'assrole rich woman x clueless poor man' #also like. they may have done this somewhat unintentionally but it's v much a portrayal of how men can suffer domestic/verbal abuse #unintentional in that they might not have thought 'oh this is literally abuse' while writing it. but it super is #and i think it's really interesting to see just how much hyun-woo and the other husbands suppress themselves despite being very competent #bc they're told so often that they're incompetent and useless #that's how psychological abuse gets you babes!

[blue-cheeseinmyoffwhites]

The very concept that Eddie Diaz got outed by Family Feud is hilarious actually. What gave it away is that they picked Josh as the 5th member instead of anyone else

#I like josh don't get me wrong #but the fact that the didn't pick jlh or kc was super sus #then someone pointed out the whole group was queer & I was like #omg wait eddie isn't out yet #and this season will be over by the time they're on family feud #soooooo yeah this will be an interesting rest of the season #911 abc #oliver stark #evan buckley #ryan guzman #eddie diaz #aisha hinds #hen wilson #tracie thoms #karen wilson #bryan safi #josh russo #& the episode is gonna be during pride month

[hajihiko]

back off our boy!

#Yes yes you're in love with Hajime. Bitch we all are!! Play nice or ELSE #Sdr2 #Super danganronpa 2 #Danganronpa 2 #Danganronpa #danganronpa 2 goodbye despair #Hajime hinata #nagito komaeda #Sonia nevermind #Akane owari #Kazuichi Souda #Fuyuhiko kuzuryu #Their endless weird unhealthy flirting game is ended by the power of : #Friends Who Want What's Best For You (And May Be A Bit Overprotective) #Once again I feel u must clarify. I'm not like a vicious hater of the ship or anything #I think they (and chiaki) make the most sense as love interests #I just also believe they're very unhealthy for one another and need like t years of therapy before they should ethically try dating at all #Sometimes people can have feelings and be back for each other and that's a fun thing to roll around and analyze imo!

[starflungwaddledee]

Bandee and Starstruck 🎀💖

starting off my february starstruck dee ship-a-ganza with the big one. they do seem like... the obvious answer, huh...?

they have far and away the most development together and the strongest personal relationship, both in what i've posted, and in her story overall! would kill or die for each other in a heartbeat. i would be absolutely lying if i said i'd never thought about it, but i'm not 100% convinced my thoughts lead me to romance specifically...

they're already pretty insane about each other! starstruck in particular is madly in love with bandee in every way it's possible to be. loves him the way he loves kirby, i think (pretty sure he does not know this. might be shocked to learn it.)

however she's daft as bricks, so he'd have to initiate, and i can't really imagine anything in their relationship would change.... so he'd have to mostly want The Title or the Performance one way or another, and i'm not super sure he would!

#so... this comic is canon to her storyline and is meant to be read as platonic friendship for now! #but i'd be v interested to hear anyone else's thoughts on this pairing in particular!! COULD it be romo??? like.. sure! but how? #i think it would be super cute. but HOW?? i'm just kinda stuck. they're already nuts about each other. what else is there? qpp maybe. #loves him the way he loves kirby. devoutly. viscerally. #the spot carved out of your heart that's just the right size. pulse beating someone else's tune. it's not your palm you know best. #do you get what i'm saying. someone please read these tags and respond i gotta know i'm not the only one #'starflung is all your prose like /that/' yeah sorry. and this is why i don't share my writing lmao. pretentious loser #starstruck dee #bandana waddle dee #my art #my comics #🎀💖

[butthatsnotwhereminelives]

thinking about how 1989 does sound like a new york album in some ways but the marketing obviously hammered that home like nothing else vs taylor saying slut! is more of a california song and a lot of the og album was even recorded in LA

basically what i'm saying is imagine a version of the album where it ends with wtny instead of beginning with it; heralding a new beginning and leaving the back and forth relationships behind for a new city she can get lost in

#not saying that's a true description to life #just interesting to me how in some ways this album is super cyclical #we come back every time #and i find it interesting to think about the different ways it could have been marketed #i have the same thing with lover #fascinating how our conceptions of art are so so so defined by how they're marketed #especially how they're initially presented to us #first impressions are hard to shift

[academyofbrokenhearts]

Kunning life 2 in a nutshell

Xie Wei: conceal don't fe- Xie Wei: wait Xie Wei: WHY THE FUCK DO YOU LIKE ZHANG ZHE YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO LIKE HIM AT ALL THINK OF YAN LIN BUT ALSO YOU SHOULD NOT BE WITH YAN LIN EITHER Jiang Xuening: ... Jiang Xuening: okay I am going to peace out Xie Wei: NO WTF WHERE ARE YOU LEAVING IS SOMEONE BOTHERING YOU SHOULD I KILL THEM WHAT IF I KILL ZHANG ZHE THEN WHAT Jiang Xuening: what is going on Xie Wei: NO YOU KNOW WHAT I AM DONE YOU ARE MINE AND WE NEED TO MAKE OUT FOR THE REST OF OUR EXISTENCE Jiang Xuening: what Xie Wei: YOU DON'T WANT TO BE MINE HOW DARE YOU okay then I am yours forever and ever please step on me should I stab myself for you? let's get married

#Story of Kunning Palace #Ning An Ru Meng #C drama #Xie Wei #Jiang Xuening #in which Xie Wei's earlier plan of 'conceal don't feel' fails spectacularly #and good for him #also I am super impressed that Jiang Xuening only becomes romantically interested in him when he actively harms himself for her sake #they're both gloriously unhinged and I love it #original posts

[agent-troi]

scully and mulder's dynamic visibly changes after the onset of the season of secret sex

i've been thinking about how dd and ga deliberately played season 7 like mulder and scully were sleeping together, and i think there's solid evidence of that in the differences in how scully reacts to mulder appearing to show interest in another woman before and after the season of secret sex begins (i'm using millennium as the before/after divider bc i think that's what dd and ga decided, but this is based on my vague memory of a reddit comment about it which is how i first learned that the season of secret sex was a thing)

so overall there's an undercurrent of insecurity, borne of scully's uncertainty regarding precisely how mulder feels about her and what her place is in the hierarchy of things that are important to him in his life, that exists in the pre-millennium incidents and is glaringly absent post-millennium:

before millennium:

(i'm not gonna include phoebe/fire here bc i don't think scully's awareness of her feelings had yet risen to the point where she'd be truly jealous, i'd characterize her in that ep as largely protective of mulder and unwilling to let him deal with phoebe's games alone. it also helps that he's clearly not happy phoebe is back in his life again, unlike his much more positive reaction to diana)

war of the coprophages- the second scully finds out about bambi, she immediately hops in her car and drives up to miller's grove to join mulder, bc letting him investigate cockroaches alone was fine but god forbid he spend quality time investigating an x-file with an attractive female scientist who isn't herself- that's their thing!!

syzygy- to be fair the planetary alignment situation was exacerbating her- and mulder's- behavior here, but her jealousy of and hostility to detective white were still real, even if she would've been able to rein in her emotions better under normal circumstances.

diana fowley arc- i think this speaks for itself, lol

alpha- this is an interesting period in their relationship: after most of the diana shit is over, but before the tension between them is fully resolved (a process which to me begins with milagro/the unnatural and ends with amor fati, but that would be its own post lol).

other than introducing himself to karin as "fox" (maybe as a way to appeal to her preference for canids lol) and thus implicitly giving her permission to call him by his first name (which she proceeds to do throughout the episode), mulder doesn't seem to show much in the way of attraction to her.

even when he touches her hand to move the mouse, he's more interested in what's on the screen than in paying attention to her:

karin, however, is visibly affected by the contact, a fact which scully immediately notices:

later in the car, they have this convo, the last line of which is so heavily laden with diana subtext it's not even funny:

scully's reaction to karin is similar to her reaction to phoebe in that she's motivated mainly by wanting to protect mulder from his own naive, trusting nature, and from someone she believes is seeking to take advantage of it, rather than being motivated primarily by jealousy and defensiveness. she doesn't really believe that karin is a genuine threat to her relationship with mulder, but with diana still fresh in her memory she can't afford to not be vigilant. hence why she confronts karin alone later:

here scully demonstrates that she somewhat empathizes with karin (mulder is also someone who challenges her, makes her feel fulfilled and happy and alive). karin's response indicates that she has correctly deduced the basis of scully's dislike/distrust of her, and also acknowledges scully is the dominant one as it relates to the territory (mulder) that they are sparring over.

scully looks away at karin's "feminine wiles" comment, revealing the nagging insecurity about her place in mulder's life that diana's arrival exacerbated and that will continue to plague her until amor fati.

after millennium:

rush- when mulder looks back at chastity in the hallway, scully's reaction is to possessively grab mulder's sleeve and pull him away into the interrogation room:

and his response is to laugh and say "what?" like he doesn't know he belongs to her and only her.

keep in mind this happens just before they interrogate tony reed, and right after they finish interrogating him this shit happens:

i already made a post last week about how insanely flirty they are in this episode, but this scene!!

she's pouting and giving him big doe eyes and playing with his tie!! at work!! in public!! she feels comfortable staking her territory in such an obvious way (also playful rather than hostile) bc she's not longer insecure about her place in his life!! i can never be normal about this i'm sorry ssdfgksdgsjdkfhkjsdf

first person shooter- when mulder checks out jade blue afterglow as she's leaving, he leans so far over in such an obvious, exaggerated way, almost as if he's deliberately trying to get a rise out of scully, but all she does is raise her eyebrows at him and lean over to block his view (while smirking):

and then he says he's "feeling the great need to blast the crap out of something", an almost direct quote of scully's line from their convo in the autopsy room right before they went down to the station:

and her response is to SMILE at him!!

pre-millennium scully would absolutely not have reacted this way in this situation. just like in rush, the insecurity that previously haunted scully whenever mulder seemed to be close to or interested in another woman is utterly absent here. they're joking and teasing and enjoying each other's company like they've always done, but there's a different dimension to it now. pre-millennium mulder would never have made a show of checking out another woman like that right in front of scully (unless a planetary alignment is affecting his behavior ofc lol), and pre-millennium scully would never have found it amusing.

(side note: people were debating on twitter a while back about whether this scene was ooc for mulder, and tbh i'm not sure what my own opinion is bc to me the whole episode has an air of... unreality? idk but it gives me similar vibes to post-modern prometheus, like maybe it's real or maybe it's just someone telling a story or it's somewhere in between, and it's also got that same unserious feel idk how else to describe it)

anyway, back to my main point, which is: dd and ga are damn good actors in the way they were able to subtly telegraph this shift in mulder and scully's dynamic. one might be able to argue that the insane flirting throughout season 7 isn't by itself evidence of the season of secret sex bc on some level they've always been like that, but to me these specific interactions provide important clues that the nature of their relationship has changed.

#if anyone can think of any more examples where mulder expresses interest in someone who isn't scully pls let me know #i feel like neither of them do that very often lol #they're just too obsessed with each other #txf meta #long post #i spent the afternoon writing this instead of working on my wip #mad respect for kae and trish and tiger and anyone who regularly writes super long meta posts bc damn this was surprisingly time consuming #season of secret sex #x files #fox mulder #dana scully #mulder x scully #msr #david duchovny #gillian anderson #war of the coprophages #syzygy #diana fowley #alpha #rush #first person shooter #txf s3 #txf s6 #txf s7

[t-u-i-t-c]

Rita Kaniska ↔ Yanma Gast

+ bonus

#king ohger spoilers #super sentai #king ohger #kingohger #ohsama sentai king ohger #ohsama sentai kingohger #rita kaniska #yanma gast #yanma gust #tombo ohger #papillon ohger #flashing lights #flashing lights tw #tokuedit #please do not repost #umbrella.edits #umbrella.gifs #umbrella.posts #going to try to make every swap a set for this ep #interesting how i wrote an analysis of yanma and rita's characters and they're the ones to get swapped...the universe did this for me

[n-bullseye]

They're single celled organisms to me. Like Mario.

I rlly like Stephen Hillenburg's early sketches of the main cast. His personal works are so alive and bubbly and off center. I would suggest taking a look at them yourself.

#digital art #fanart #illustration #doodle #my art #spongebob squarepants #patrick star #hans the hand #does anyone even use that previous tag #I think hans is a super obscure interest #I know spunch and patrice are grown men/creatures but idc they're cute to me #once again flashbanging everyone who followed me for specific fanart with this completely out of the blue #hope u like it anyways tho :3

[citrinesparkles]

stormy weather

jason todd x gender neutral reader. 720 words. notes: a very abstract take on 'write a true story about you with characters instead of people', one of the prompts from the ever lovely @reaperintheroses drabble december! this was more 'write about feelings', but i tried. warnings: vague bad headspace on jason's part

he was in a mood.

you weren't sure what mood, but it wasn't good.

it was, however, familiar enough that you weren't surprised when he walked through the bedroom like a ghost.

all he took with him as he left it was a nail file.

you sat quietly, listening for the window.

there it was, about half a minute later: the sliding sound of the window in the frame was quiet but unmistakable, as was the sound of it sliding shut behind him.

fire escape brooding.

you sighed- that was a surefire sign that the mood had settled in completely. you had hoped, somewhat naïvely, that it would be a "wrong side of the bed" situation; had hoped he would be able to shake it off.

with the mood here to stay, you put your phone aside and slid out of bed.

it wasn't something to fix. not days like this. as much as you wished you could carry the weight of this for him, you settled instead for trying to share the load.

you took your time walking through the apartment, giving him his space for a little while as you boiled water and steeped tea for him.

you dug out his largest, warmest sweatshirt, tugging it on to brace against the cold you knew was wrapped around him both mentally and literally. then, with a glance at his silhouette in the window, you picked up his mug and approached.

he barely reacted to the sound of the window opening, only shifting slightly so his ear was towards you in silent acknowledgement.

"i made tea," you said softly, leaning on the sill. "interested?"

jason hesitated a moment, the only sounds the traffic below.

he shrugged, twirling the nail file between two fingers.

you reached over, gently pressing the mug into his free hand, watching as he pulled it to his chest with a hum.

"do you want space, or would you prefer i join you?"

"...you can." his voice was steady, but uncharacteristically quiet and lifeless. "not gonna be much company right now."

you slid out the window, closing it behind you, and he glanced up at you blankly. "you don't have to be," you said firmly, quietly, as you sat down beside him. "i'm just here."

the metal was freezing, even through your thick sweatpants. it would take more than a stretch of the imagination to call it comfortable, but you settled in like it was memory foam.

you sat in silence, listening to him breathe beside you and watching it fog in your peripheral.

you sat until your legs ached and your nose felt about ready to fall off from the cold. you sat for far longer than it took him to drain his mug. you sat long enough that the rush of lunch traffic came and went below you.

you sat watching gray clouds churn in the sky, offering the only comfort you could: he wasn't alone.

eventually, he inhaled deeply, and you felt something shift.

"you want a grilled cheese?" his voice was rough and quiet, but using it was a good sign.

you recognized the offer as the thank you that it was.

"yeah," you matched his volume, gently breaking your silence. "that sounds good."

it wasn't over, not by a long shot. you could feel it in the air around you, as though jason was a storm and the front was rolling in. it would be a few days, you suspected, of this- of disconnect, of that distant look in his eyes.

and that was the best case scenario.

he pushed himself up and off the ground, wincing when his bad ankle popped unpleasantly, and you changed your mind. he wasn't the storm. a storm in his own right, sure, strong and beautiful and immovable to all the world, but in this case he was standing on the coast and watching the storm turn the ocean angry.

he reached a hand down to help you up.

you took it, squeezing it once, twice, three times in quick succession as you hauled yourself to your feet. once there, you relaxed your grip.

he kept his, keeping your palm against his own. bracing himself against the wind.

you'd be damned if you let him board up the windows and sandbag the doorways on his own.

#citrine writes #drabbledecember #HA I DID ONE #kinda. #jason todd #for anyone interested in how this fits the prompt fhjdkfhsj i wanted to explore how i process my own bad spaces #and then it turned into me thinking about how helpful company is and how many times people have saved me from spirals just by being Around #the other part of this that was super personal was the storm analogy. storms scared me as a kid #but now they're comforting and remind me of home #there's beauty in the scary parts of life too. even when the storm is here there's beauty in life #especially if you can share it. #jason todd imagine #jason todd x reader #imagines #dc imagines #dc #jason todd x y/n #jason todd x you #gn reader